We are having work done in our kitchen today. Normally we keep the cats’ food and water in the kitchen but with the impending chaos I moved them into our bedroom.
While I was getting ready for work this morning, the two cats were hanging out in the bedroom with me. I took advantage of the situation to do something I am not proud of. When I left the room to go start work, I closed the door behind me and trapped the cats inside. Their food and water are in the room with them, and they can get to their litter box from there too.
So effectively… I have imprisoned them for the day. I am a mean and terrible cat owner. Shame on me.
I am in the office today. I expect to be in the office tomorrow, at home on Thursday, and then in the office again on Friday. You are clearly beside yourself with fascination, I can see. Clearly.
I took a picture for today’s photo a day entry. Again, you are fascinated.
We called the contractor’s office who worked on our dishwasher over the last two weeks and demanded a refund. They sent out a tech to see what was wrong instead. He ripped our kitchen apart and found nothing wrong. Insert a frustrated sigh here. I ran the dishwasher twice last night and the error message did not return. The working theory is that something was partially blocking the outflow, possibly in the garbage disposal, and it just backed up into the dishwasher. Yeah, I guess. We’ll run the disposal before running the dishwasher and see how that works. Frankly I am still wanting to take the thing outside and run it over with the car. We’ll see how it goes for a while, but I don’t see myself trusting the little bastard any time soon.
Okay, I gotta run. Someone needs me to move some code out to a customer. I’ll get on that and talk to you folks later.
Last night Jen and I stayed at the hotel that is hosting her company’s function. I got up at 5:30, took a shower, and drove home. It’s a little wacky, but I am working from home on a day when we aren’t actually home. Does that make sense? No? So what, it’s how it is. Heh.
Tomorrow I will work in the office, so I’ll be driving there from the hotel instead of from home. That’s going to be weird too. I was thinking that I would bring my camera with me and wander around the city after work tonight, but if I am going straight to work in the morning I will have my work laptop with me… so I think I will be going to the hotel after work, and it will be late enough that the sun will be down by the time I get there and put my stuff away. So maybe I won’t be wandering around the city after all. Maybe I’ll just stay in the room and watch Daredevil while I wait for Jen to come back from her post-work, work-events.
We’ll see. I did tell Jen that if I happen on a music store in my wandering and said music store had a Gibson guitar for sale for under $1,000, then I am totally buying it. I should see if I can make that promise come true. Heh heh.
Anyway, time to get ready for work. There is a contractor coming this afternoon as well as a delivery that I have to open the door for. All of that on top of having a crazy busy schedule. It’s going to be a weird one today. Big time.
I am starting to wonder if this particular contractor just likes our house or something and wants to keep coming over. I’m kidding, of course, but sheesh.
The project that was supposed to happen today uncovered an issue that required us to push to another day as well as make some changes before it can happen. Which means we’re going to have to schedule another day for them to come back once they find the parts they need. It’s routine maintenance that just never seems to end, somehow.
Insert yet another frustrated sigh here.
On the plus side, since I’m only working half a day today, my work day only has two hours and 12 minutes remaining instead of six hours and 42 minutes. Nice.
Happy Monday, everyone. Mondays suck, but what can you do?
This week is gonna be a weird one for us here at the Inside the Red Head’s Head family. Yup.
First off, contractors. Yet another contractor is coming to the house today. Just routine maintenance. It’s not even 8:00am and by all rights I should be in the shower right now but I am not because the contractor just told us he’s on his way. He may even be done before I start the work day. How crazy is that?
There are two contractors on the books for tomorrow. One is coming to fix a leak in our dishwasher. I am so mad about that leak that I cannot even think straight, but fingers crossed it will be back to normal tomorrow. The question of whether I will ever trust it again is still outstanding. The other contractor scheduled for tomorrow was for the same issue. I have to cancel it, but it’s the same service that is coming today and I had this nasty feeling that if I cancelled Tuesday’s appointment they would accidentally cancel Monday’s and hijinx would ensue.
Contractor visits are just one of the weird things going on this week. The other has to do with a hotel. Jen’s company is running a conference this week in Boston. They booked rooms for their staff and that includes my beloved bride. I took a half day off of work today so that I could bring her to the hotel in time for whatever they have planned this afternoon. I am hoping that I will be able to squat at the hotel with her at night, though I have to work from home tomorrow (see above) and I have to work in the office for the rest of the week. The end result is, I am going to be doing a lot of Boston driving this week. I am okay with that… I just need to know where to go, you know? Jen has the details so it will be fine.
Other than that… my step son was here yesterday but he’s already left to go back to Vermont. He is on spring break this week but he is scheduled to work a ton. No extended visit this time but I am very happy to have seen him yesterday. I do love it when my step kids are here.
It’s now 8:00am. The contractor called about 25 minutes ago saying he was on his way. Here’s hoping he gets here soon and can wrap up the job quickly. Fingers eternally crossed.
I had a million things to do before work this morning, then a million things to do during work, then a million things to do after work… so obviously I was going to oversleep, right?
Frustrated sigh.
Oh well. The big question for Friday mornings these days is do I watch the new episode of Severance while I do my morning exercise, or do I watch the new episode of Yellowjackets. Today I went with Yellowjackets. No spoilers for season three episode five, but if there is one thing that show needs (a lot) more of, it is PJ Harvey music. I started watching Severance (season two episode eight, I think) but I haven’t the faintest clue what’s going on. I’ll finish it before I sleep tonight. Promise.
We had a contractor at the house yesterday. We have another one coming this morning, any minute now, and we have another one coming this afternoon. Things are getting weird around here.
What else was I going to mention this morning? Oh yeah, I woke up at about 4:00am this morning. I think it was the wind that woke me. It was blowing around like a hurricane out there. It was bad enough that it knocked over the bird feeder. I have to fix it, but the ground is still frozen so it might have to wait a little while. It’s March so the thaw out is coming, but it’s not coming soon enough for me.
Today is also the NHL trade deadline. I expect it’s going to be a sad day for Boston Bruins fans as we’re far enough out of the playoff picture that we will be sellers. Here’s hoping for a lot of high draft picks while also hoping that none of my favorite Bruins get dealt away. Fingers crossed.
Apple Music just let me know that there’s a new Bob Mould album released today. I’ll give that a listen while stressing about everything under the sun. Sounds good to me.
The first contractor has arrived. I’d best let him in…………
I spoke to the contractor who is fixing the bathroom in our primary bedroom suite. He said the plan for today is to paint in the morning and start putting things back together again in the afternoon. Sounds like the end might be in sight. Probably another day, maybe two? It’s going to be nice to have two bathrooms again. We haven’t been a two bathroom house for too terribly long, but boy did I get super spoiled, super fast.
We thought we were going to have to clean out the closet in the bathroom that’s being gutted today. We don’t. What a freakin’ relief. We have so much stuff in that closet that the idea of cleaning it out was giving me hives.
I don’t have a picture of the progress yet, but ever since we took the drop ceiling out of the basement back in April I can see the hot and cold water lines that run into that bathroom while I’m sitting at my desk at work… so… that’s something, right?
It sounds like our heroic contractor guy is going to get held up at his other job again today. Something about a roof or something. First he sent Jen a text saying he’d be there around 4:00pm. Then he sent another saying he’d let her know when he figured it out, or something. I got that second hand. I could be telephone gaming the hell out of this. Jen might have said something completely different and my tiny brain just misread it all. Who knows.
He told us he needs a few hours to finish the floor, and then a few more to finish the baseboard trim and all the little fiddley bits. As of Monday we were thinking he might be finished with everything by Thursday. On Tuesday he was only over the house for an hour. Wednesday he was at the other job until super late (again, roof?). There was still a shot that he’d finish it all by Friday. Now, maybe not.
There are so many people here. A three man electrician team, our regular contractor, his drywall subcontractor, and a landscaper team with at least four people. Talk about a perfect storm. We knew the electricians and our regular contractor would be here. Everyone else is a surprise.
The old cellar lights with the big fluorescent tubes are gone. The last of the drop ceiling framing is gone, the last of the un-insulated cellar walls have been insulated. The front and back yards have been cleaned, including the litter that the wind and the squirrels put into the edge of the woods. Most of it at least. They didn’t do the best job there, but they did a good job everywhere else.
As we speak, the new cellar lighting is being installed and wired up, and the wall board that is going to be installed starting tomorrow is being loaded into the cellar.
From a Covid safety standpoint, everyone is masked and everyone is entering the house through the cellar bulkhead. The cellar is a big open space so everyone can stay as distanced as they need, and no one has to walk through the main floor to get in and out.
Still… It’s stressful. It’s also loud. Lots of banging and hammering and crashing and cacophony and super loud leaf blowers and all of that stuff. It’s making it difficult to work.
Oh yeah, speaking of work. Insert frustrated screaming here. Nothing too terrible, but lots and lots of little things that are piling up and making me want to hide my head under the covers.
So yeah… stressful as hell kinda Tuesday. I’m ready for bed.
Inside the Red Head's Head 